Disbandment of Ukraine's Medical and Social Assessment Boards: Health Minister explains who will carry out assessments

As of 1 January 2025, Ukraine’s Medical and Social Assessment Boards (MSABs) will cease their activities as separate legal entities, and their functions will be transferred to cluster and supra-cluster hospitals.

Source: Minister of Health Viktor Liashko during a briefing on 23 October, quoted by Ukrinform

Details: Liashko explained that the Health Ministry is addressing four global issues, one of which is staffing. 

Quote: "Regarding the issue of digitalisation, all cluster and supra-cluster hospitals are connected to the Electronic Health System (EHS), and decisions about establishing disability will be made based on data recorded in the EHS," the minister said. 

Liashko said this will allow the ministry to clearly track which doctor inputs a diagnosis, when it was done, and what examinations were conducted. 

"In the event of an investigation, if there are challenges related to criminal cases, for example, we will clearly see the hierarchy of who made mistakes at various stages. Additionally, as a demonstration of the digitalisation of the medical and social assessment of conscripts, we can automatically monitor anomalies or diagnoses related to a hospital or a specific doctor, and work proactively to prevent potential abuses," he stated. 

Furthermore, the Health Ministry plans to abandon the concept of medical and social assessment.

Quote: "Medical professionals who have provided specific treatment and rehabilitation assess an individual's work capacity needs. Subsequently, through the International Classification of Functioning, Disability ad Health (ICF) which has already become a national classifier, other parties are involved, including the Ministry of Social Policy, which examines the functions the individual has lost and what compensatory measures can be proposed from their side. 

The Ministry of Economy also gets involved if a person, due to a loss of functionality, cannot perform the work they did previously due to health reasons. Additionally, the Ministry of Education will be involved if there is a need to offer retraining due to the loss of certain functions of the body. This will ultimately allow us to offer not additional payments, but compensatory measures that enable the person to reintegrate into society and remain socially and economically active."

Details: The minister also stated that his position is to ensure that members of the administration of the MSABs cannot subsequently transition to senior administrative positions in other healthcare institutions.

Previously: On 22 October, after a meeting of the National Security and Defence Council, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a decree that all Medical and Social Assessment Boards in Ukraine should be disbanded by 31 December 2024.

In his evening address, Zelenskyy said that for real change to take place, all stages of the process for establishing disability must be fully digitalised.

Background:

• Back in May 2023, Health Minister Viktor Liashko said that MSABs would cease to exist from 1 January 2025.
• Recently, there have been a number of high-profile revelations of corruption in MSABs in different oblasts of Ukraine.

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